a conversation with j

i'm talking with my young friend j last night and he says, "so i got some more pictures of the english boy--unfortunately, they're not flattering so i think i'm over him."

when i register a blank, he reminds me of his latest crush, some straight kid he'd met online during one of his endless "world of warcraft" game sessions (an obsession with which he wisely never bores me).

when i ask him how he managed to get his hands on pics of some guy half a world away who doesn't even know he's alive, he says, "it was easy. first i chatted him up a little--you know, all casual--found out where he likes to hang out. then i went over there and searched profiles until i found his girlfriend. her profile had a link to her blog, which is filled with her thoughts and bad poetry--all the typical 17-year-old-girl stuff. i read as much as i needed to, put her on my aim buddy list, created a new profile specifically for her and, next time she showed up online, switched to the new profile and im'd her, telling her that i had recently found her blog and how much i loved it.

"she was very flattered and, having read her deepest thoughts and thus knowing exactly which buttons to push, i had her eating outta my hand in about five minutes. after that, it was only a matter of time before i was able to work the subject around to her boyfriend, and the rest is history."

when i ask him how much time he'd devoted to this little enterprise, he says, "i dunno--three days maybe. why?"

three days. all this ingenuity and machiavellian machination just to get a few pictures of some guy he'd never meet. had i ever been that boy-crazy? and then i thought, of course i had--i just didn't have the tools at my disposal then that j does now.

when i ask him if he's talked to the girl since getting what he wanted from her, he says, "no, why should i? but the great thing is, from the backstory i gave her she thinks i have a very hectic life and travel a lot, so if i ever need anything else from her i can just drop back in and explain my absence with some story or other, and we'll be right back where we were."

when i ask him if he has any moral compunction about creating this fiction in order to manipulate some stranger into doing his bidding, he says, "you have to understand, this has become second nature to me. i mean, how do you think i build all these alliances and win over all these assholes i can't stand but whose support i really need in 'world of warcraft'? i read 'em like a book and then tell 'em what they want to hear--it's ridiculously easy and totally necessary."

and then i ask him if he understands--fuck any damage he might be doing to others--that if he keeps this up it's gonna bleed over into his real life and he's gonna lose the ability to know whether what he's feeling is real or not.

that stops him for a minute, and he says, "i think that's happening already. half the time i don't know whether i really like somebody or i'm just pretending to because they might be useful in the future."

god, i love the internet.

god, i love the internet

a friend who knows of my interest mentioned that jean genet's un chant d'amour will be featured in this year's outfest (the los angeles gay/lesbian film festival). for those of you unfamiliar with the film, it's an underground classic which genet made back in 1950 using a professional crew and four of his friends and former lovers as actors, his target audience being collectors of gay erotica. considered extraordinarily shocking at the time, it was almost immediately banned and remained unavailable to all but a few for many years.

i've wanted to see it for a long time, so during our chat i googled it on the off-chance it might have become available online since the last time i checked, and voila!, there it was--instant gratification, thank you jesus for the intertubes.

i'm not a film reviewer so i won't bore you with my impressions, except to say that i loved it--and whoever added the music (it was originally silent) knew exactly what they were doing. oh, and i watched the sequence with the smoke through the straw at least a dozen times.

if you have 25 minutes, have any interest in vintage avant-garde filmmaking and/or you're curious to see what could possibly have gotten peoples' panties in such a bunch half a century ago, give it a click. and as you watch, try to forget that these guys would all be in their 80s now (le sigh).

thinking you should maybe cut back on carbs? well, you may get some help with that

[disclaimer: being a pessimist by nature--and believing as i do that not only america but the whole goddam world is going to hell--i just eat alarmist shit like this up, so keep that in mind while reading this and future posts of this type.]

joe.my.god had an item today from the new york sun about reported shortages of staple foods in various parts of the u.s. here's an excerpt from the story:

Major retailers in New York, in areas of New England, and on the West Coast are limiting purchases of flour, rice, and cooking oil as demand outstrips supply. There are also anecdotal reports that some consumers are hoarding grain stocks.

this was of course roundly dismissed as ridiculous by his commenters ("food shortages here? no way"). but similar stories are popping up on the west coast.

don't think it could happen here in one of the most prosperous, technologically-advanced countries in the world? well, japan didn't think so either--and look at what's happening over there as we speak. some choice paragraphs from an article that appeared yesterday in the australian publication the age:

MARIKO Watanabe admits she could have chosen a better time to take up baking. This week, when the Tokyo housewife visited her local Ito-Yokado supermarket to buy butter to make a cake, she found the shelves bare.

"I went to another supermarket, and then another, and there was no butter at those either. Everywhere I went there were notices saying Japan has run out of butter. I couldn't believe it — this is the first time in my life I've wanted to try baking cakes and I can't get any butter," said the frustrated cook.

A 130% rise in the global cost of wheat in the past year, caused partly by surging demand from China and India and a huge injection of speculative funds into wheat futures . . . has given rise to speculation that Japan, which relies on imports for 90% of its annual wheat consumption, is no longer on the brink of a food crisis, but has fallen off the cliff. According to one government poll, 80% of Japanese are frightened about what the future holds for their food supply.

"In the past, Japan was a rich country with a powerful yen that could easily buy cheap imports such as wheat, corn and soybeans," said Mr Shibata, who directs the Marubeni Research Institute in Tokyo. "But with enormous competition from the booming Chinese and Indian economies, that's changed forever.

now, we're nowhere near as dependent on imported foodstuffs as is japan, but make no mistake about it--this is but a taste of things to come. get ready, because we're all gonna be paying a lot more for a lot less.

why is everybody so worked up about pennsylvania?

there's no suspense here. i mean, whether she wins by two points or ten points or loses altogether, it doesn't matter--she's not getting out; she's gonna drag this out to the convention if she can.

about my last couple posts

in response to "fuck dinner, part 2", loyal reader noblesavage commented as follows:

"You are stretching this out aren't ya? Is this your image of masculinity? Or something? Would really like to know how this formed you."

and the answer to his first question is, yeah--i'm stretching it out a lot. because in the process of writing part 1 (which was all it was ever supposed to be), all these long-buried memories started surfacing--things i hadn't thought about in years--and i actually enjoyed the process of dragging them outta the vault and exposing them to light. in fact, it's probably the first time i've gotten how therapeutic writing can be in and of itself, and as a result, part 3 of this story is probably gonna be even longer than part 2--and what's more, now that i'm into it, you can expect even more of this self-indulgent take-a-walk-with-me-down-memory-lane crap in the future (it is my blog, goddammit). maybe i'll post a warning at the beginning of such future posts, save you all a bunch of time.

as to the second question: as children, we all--gay or straight, male or female--form indelible impressions of what a man is and should be by observing the way the men in our lives handle themselves; god knows that was true for me--and yeah, it had serious repercussions in my life. maybe i'll go into that more in a future post.